Diplomatic runway

"The notion that China would be economically and technologically crippled by US sanctions never made much sense, but it took a while for Trump to come to grips with reality," Hufbauer said. "Trump evidently decided that terrible relations with China were not to his political advantage and shifted to a reconciliation mode."

Throughout the year, Beijing and Washington launched multiple rounds of senior-level economic and trade talks, starting in mid-May in Geneva, Switzerland, reviving a regular consultation mechanism to keep disputes from spiraling.

Four more rounds of negotiations were held in Europe and Asia through early October, capped by a video conference between Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Dec 5.

While these trade talk sessions yielded few breakthrough headlines, they maintained "candid, constructive" contact, managed friction in the implementation of points of consensus reached in each round of talks, and helped build a diplomatic runway for a leaders' meeting in late October.

When summarizing the year at a trade forum in December, Xie Feng, China's ambassador to the US, said that since the start of 2025, China-US economic and trade relations have gone through many ups and downs. "We have seen both looming clouds and clear skies," he said.

Xie pointed out that the strategic guidance for China-US relations is provided by the direct engagement between the two heads of state, which is a critical stabilizing force amid volatility.

President Xi Jinping and US President Trump were in frequent contact in the past 10 months, including an in-person meeting and four phone calls, the envoy said, adding that their successful meeting in Busan, South Korea, "recalibrated" the course of bilateral relations.

Xie noted that a follow-up phone call within a month of the Busan meeting helped sustain the stabilizing momentum, adding that leader-level diplomacy serves as the "anchor" for bilateral ties.